I don't know if you've seen the videos, but the latency from input to result on the screen is, very, very bad. I don't think this is actually what you want.
We all want low-power retro computing but expect reasonable latency in usage. We also want WIFI working in every room and e-ink that doesn't suck and doesn't cost half a car... And the ability to browse the web (HTTPS). It's just not there yet.
When someone will make a product this good with all of the modern life "requirements", that will be a vastly successful product I imagine.
The latency from keypress to screen is 0.3 seconds for the first keypress, and about 0.4 seconds for all keypresses after that, until the next pause in typing.
This device is not, of course, intended to be able to perform modern functions that are required for modern office work. Its goal is to never run out of power, and its design tries to prioritize that at the expense of everything else, including features and performance. Because for anyone that loves computers as much as I do, a computer that will power up and provide a virtually unlimited amount of software, games, programming and software development options, and connectivity is better than a more modern and faster computer that won't turn on because it has no power. This computer can run for 500-1000 hours using power saving mode, and 200 hours without power saving mode. And with the built in solar panel, there should be ample opportunities to recharge it (or just run it directly off sunlight instead of using the batteries) before it the batteries run down. In a situation where people have to adjust to living in the long term without electricity, modern office computing is unlikely to be required, nor will there be any Internet. But in that situation, I still want to have a computer that I can use to do pretty much anything. This gives me that.
Someone else mentioned a Transreflective screen. we used to get a whole week with a Motorola Dragonball 6800 CPU and one of those screens on two AA batteries....
I want palm pilot back personally. Best mobile games still to this day.
That said a responsive x86 pocket top that also has a 5 day battery would be awesome too. Solar can change pretty quickly.
Out of curiosity how quickly could you log into wifi, check for whatever on the wifi, and turn off? Can you do that every 200 ms and have the wifi off most of the time? Is that what cell phones do already?
Mostly just curious about minimizing energy usage due to wifi.
Logging entirely out and back in every 200 ms would be bad, because associating is expensive and it probably takes longer than 200 ms, at least if you also want to do anything useful.
Agreed that latency and lack of WiFi would be problematic. I have no need of HTTPS though. I'm happy to live in a terminal and ssh to a "real" computer for anything that goes beyond vim.
We all want low-power retro computing but expect reasonable latency in usage. We also want WIFI working in every room and e-ink that doesn't suck and doesn't cost half a car... And the ability to browse the web (HTTPS). It's just not there yet.
When someone will make a product this good with all of the modern life "requirements", that will be a vastly successful product I imagine.